IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/statpp/v12y2021i1p87-127n6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tracing Policy-relevant Information in Social Media: The Case of Twitter before and during the COVID-19 Crisis

Author

Listed:
  • Vydra Simon

    (Multi Actor Systems, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands)

  • Kantorowicz Jaroslaw

    (Institute of Security and Global Affairs and Department of Economics, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands)

Abstract

Real-time social media data hold great conceptual promise for research and policymaking, but also face substantial limitations and shortcomings inherent to processing re-purposed data in near-real-time. This paper aims to fill two research gaps important for understanding utility of real-time social media data for policymaking: What policy-relevant information is contained in this data and whether this information changes in periods of abrupt social, economic, and policy change. To do so, this paper focuses on two salient policy areas heavily affected by the lockdown policies responding to the 2020 COVID-19 crisis – early childhood education and care policies, and labor market policies focused on (un)employment. We utilize Twitter data for a four-month period during the first wave of COVID-19 and data for the same four-month period the preceding year. We analyze this data using a novel method combining structural topic models and latent semantic scaling, which allows us to summarize the data in detail and to test for change of content between the period of ‘normalcy’ and period of ‘crisis’. With regards to the first research gap, we show that there is policy-relevant information in Twitter data, but that the majority of our data is of limited relevance, and that the data that is relevant present some challenges and limitations. With regards to the second research gap, we successfully quantify the change in relevant information between periods of ‘normalcy’ and ‘crisis’. We also comment on the practicality and advantages of our approach for leveraging micro-blogging data in near real-time.

Suggested Citation

  • Vydra Simon & Kantorowicz Jaroslaw, 2021. "Tracing Policy-relevant Information in Social Media: The Case of Twitter before and during the COVID-19 Crisis," Statistics, Politics and Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 87-127, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:statpp:v:12:y:2021:i:1:p:87-127:n:6
    DOI: 10.1515/spp-2020-0013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/spp-2020-0013
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/spp-2020-0013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cynthia Chew & Gunther Eysenbach, 2010. "Pandemics in the Age of Twitter: Content Analysis of Tweets during the 2009 H1N1 Outbreak," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(11), pages 1-13, November.
    2. Arthur Turrell & Bradley Speigner & Jyldyz Djumalieva & David Copple & James Thurgood, 2019. "Transforming Naturally Occurring Text Data into Economic Statistics: The Case of Online Job Vacancy Postings," NBER Chapters, in: Big Data for Twenty-First-Century Economic Statistics, pages 173-207, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Dolan Antenucci & Michael Cafarella & Margaret Levenstein & Christopher Ré & Matthew D. Shapiro, 2014. "Using Social Media to Measure Labor Market Flows," NBER Working Papers 20010, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Raj Chetty & John N Friedman & Michael Stepner & Opportunity Insights Team & Camille Baker & Harvey Barnhard & Matt Bell & Gregory Bruich & Tina Chelidze & Lucas Chu & Westley Cineus & Sebi Devlin-Fol, 2024. "The Economic Impacts of COVID-19: Evidence from a New Public Database Built Using Private Sector Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 139(2), pages 829-889.
    5. Grimmer, Justin & Stewart, Brandon M., 2013. "Text as Data: The Promise and Pitfalls of Automatic Content Analysis Methods for Political Texts," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(3), pages 267-297, July.
    6. Alberto Cavallo & Eduardo Cavallo & Roberto Rigobon, 2014. "Prices and Supply Disruptions during Natural Disasters," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S2), pages 449-471, November.
    7. Gualda, Estrella & Rebollo, Carolina, 2016. "The Refugee Crisis On Twitter: A Diversity Of Discourses At A European Crossroads," Journal of Tourism, Sustainability and Well-being, Cinturs - Research Centre for Tourism, Sustainability and Well-being, University of Algarve, vol. 4(3), pages 199-212.
    8. Francesca Carta & Lucia Rizzica, 2015. "Female employment and pre-kindergarten: on the uninteded effects of an Italian reform," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1030, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    9. Margaret E. Roberts & Brandon M. Stewart & Dustin Tingley & Christopher Lucas & Jetson Leder‐Luis & Shana Kushner Gadarian & Bethany Albertson & David G. Rand, 2014. "Structural Topic Models for Open‐Ended Survey Responses," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(4), pages 1064-1082, October.
    10. Enrico di Bella & Lucia Leporatti & Filomena Maggino, 2018. "Big Data and Social Indicators: Actual Trends and New Perspectives," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 869-878, February.
    11. Scott Baker & Andrey Fradkin, 2011. "What Drives Job Search? Evidence from Google Search Data," Discussion Papers 10-020, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    12. repec:bla:revinw:v:60:y:2014:i::p:s449-s471 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Grajzl, Peter & Murrell, Peter, 2021. "A machine-learning history of English caselaw and legal ideas prior to the Industrial Revolution I: generating and interpreting the estimates," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(1), pages 1-19, February.
    2. Dehler-Holland, Joris & Schumacher, Kira & Fichtner, Wolf, 2021. "Topic Modeling Uncovers Shifts in Media Framing of the German Renewable Energy Act," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 2(1).
    3. Parijat Chakrabarti & Margaret Frye, 2017. "A mixed-methods framework for analyzing text data: Integrating computational techniques with qualitative methods in demography," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 37(42), pages 1351-1382.
    4. Han, Chunjia & Yang, Mu & Piterou, Athena, 2021. "Do news media and citizens have the same agenda on COVID-19? an empirical comparison of twitter posts," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    5. Zhang, Han, 2021. "How Using Machine Learning Classification as a Variable in Regression Leads to Attenuation Bias and What to Do About It," SocArXiv 453jk, Center for Open Science.
    6. Damani K. White-Lewis & KerryAnn O’Meara & Kiernan Mathews & Nicholas Havey, 2023. "Leaving the Institution or Leaving the Academy? Analyzing the Factors that Faculty Weigh in Actual Departure Decisions," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 64(3), pages 473-494, May.
    7. Ferrara, Federico M. & Masciandaro, Donato & Moschella, Manuela & Romelli, Davide, 2022. "Political voice on monetary policy: Evidence from the parliamentary hearings of the European Central Bank," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    8. Camilla Salvatore & Silvia Biffignandi & Annamaria Bianchi, 2022. "Corporate Social Responsibility Activities Through Twitter: From Topic Model Analysis to Indexes Measuring Communication Characteristics," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 1217-1248, December.
    9. Dehler-Holland, Joris & Okoh, Marvin & Keles, Dogan, 2022. "Assessing technology legitimacy with topic models and sentiment analysis – The case of wind power in Germany," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    10. Oliver Wieczorek & Saïd Unger & Jan Riebling & Lukas Erhard & Christian Koß & Raphael Heiberger, 2021. "Mapping the field of psychology: Trends in research topics 1995–2015," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(12), pages 9699-9731, December.
    11. Ulrich Fritsche & Johannes Puckelwald, 2018. "Deciphering Professional Forecasters’ Stories - Analyzing a Corpus of Textual Predictions for the German Economy," Macroeconomics and Finance Series 201804, University of Hamburg, Department of Socioeconomics.
    12. Hager, Anselm & Hilbig, Hanno, 2020. "Does Public Opinion Affect Political Speech?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 64(4), pages 921-937.
    13. Seraphine F. Maerz & Carsten Q. Schneider, 2020. "Comparing public communication in democracies and autocracies: automated text analyses of speeches by heads of government," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 517-545, April.
    14. Bongsug (Kevin) Chae & Eunhye (Olivia) Park, 2018. "Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): A Survey of Topics and Trends Using Twitter Data and Topic Modeling," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-20, June.
    15. Dukalskis, Alexander & Gerschewski, Johannes, 2020. "Adapting or Freezing? Ideological Reactions of Communist Regimes to a Post-Communist World," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 55(3), pages 511-532.
    16. Serena Ng, 2017. "Opportunities and Challenges: Lessons from Analyzing Terabytes of Scanner Data," NBER Working Papers 23673, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Peter Grajzl & Peter Murrell, 2021. "Characterizing a legal–intellectual culture: Bacon, Coke, and seventeenth-century England," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 15(1), pages 43-88, January.
    18. Peter Grajzl & Cindy Irby, 2019. "Reflections on study abroad: a computational linguistics approach," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 2(2), pages 151-181, July.
    19. Michael Freedman, 2019. "Fighting from the Pulpit: Religious Leaders and Violent Conflict in Israel," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(10), pages 2262-2288, November.
    20. David Ardia & Keven Bluteau & Mohammad‐Abbas Meghani, 2024. "Thirty years of academic finance," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 1008-1042, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:statpp:v:12:y:2021:i:1:p:87-127:n:6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.